I guess automatic excommunication is getting quite popular

The National Catholic Reporter reporting
on the latest priestette “ordination” this time in a Universalist
church in Lexington, Ky. 

… She said that at the end of the
ceremony,
Sevre-Duszynska told the congregation that she often thinks of
something Dominican Sr. Marge Tuite told her many years ago: “Never
stop making the connections between sexism, racism, militarism,
nationalism and all forms of violence.”

Making those connections, Maguire said, was really the theme of the
day’s ordination. “Roy and Janice represent the merging of these
(struggles of justice), of making these connections,” Maguire
said. 

Yeah what is with that sexist Jesus guy?
 Surely he knew the
“prophetic voice” that would arise 2000 years after he was crucified
and died for our sins.  Didn’t he know that these women would
come along and interpret his will correctly for him?

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Lexington
condemned the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement as “in opposition to
the church’s authentic teaching” and warned that “members of the
Catholic faithful should not support or participate in Saturday’s
event.” Participation in the event, “carries with it very serious penal
sanctions in Church Law,” a statement on the diocese’s Web site warned.

I read that paragraph and thought that
what the diocese was saying was not quite right since
the excommunicaton
applies to “he who shall have attempted to confer holy orders on a
woman, as well as the woman who may have attempted to receive Holy
Orders, incurs in a latae sententiae excommunication, reserved to the
Apostolic See.”  Not to everybody that participates in the
event.  In this case we just have a really badly constructed
paragraph that does not accurately reflect what
the Archbishop wrote.

In the Roman Catholic Church, only a
baptized male is capable of receiving the Sacrament of Holy Orders
validly. What will take place on Saturday, August 9, 2008, has no
connection to Roman Catholic Liturgy or Sacraments and cannot in any
way be recognized as a valid reception of Sacred Orders. Simulation of
a sacrament carries with it very serious penal sanctions in Church Law.
Members of the Catholic Faithful should not support or participate in
Saturday’s event.

He certainly did not imply that imply that
all people who attended the event came under penal sanctions of Church
law.  Though certainly their support of this is quite sinful.

In a previous article NCR interviewed
Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois.

In an interview Aug. 7, two days before
the ordination, Bourgeois told NCR that he had thought long and hard
about participating after receiving an invitation to the ceremony. “I
consulted a lot of friends, I’ve done a lot of discernment, spoken with
a lot of women friends. I felt in conscience — this matter of
conscience keeps coming up and I don’t know what other word to use —
if I didn’t attend her ordination, I would have to stop addressing this
issue as I do” in speaking engagements at parishes and other Catholic
venues around the country.

Oh great he has been going around the
country supporting this falsehood.  My conscience tells me if
I ever run across this guy to give him a swift kick in the butt. Surely
he will support my conscience in this action even if it is an
impropertly formed conscience.  

“Over the years and listening to women
friends – if one listens, just shuts up and listens to their stories,
their faith journey and, in some cases, their call by God to ordination
to the priesthood in the Catholic church – there is a problem for us
guys in the church. What are we saying? God is calling us but not you?
This is heresy. We’re tampering with the sacred here.”

Hey and what about all those guys like me
who don’t have a calling to the priesthood.  God is calling
other, but not me.  This is heresy and tampering with the
sacred if every person in the world is not called to the ordained
priesthood.  I better get to the seminary fast before it fills
up with 5 billion plus people.

The hierarchy will say, “It is the
tradition of the church not to ordain women.” I grew up in a small town
in Louisiana and often heard, “It is the tradition of the South to have
segregated schools.” It was also “the tradition” in our Catholic church
to have the Black members seated in the last five pews of the church.

What a poorly catechized priest who can’t
tell the difference between so-called big-T traditions and small-T
tradition.  Or if he does it is even worse to use such an
argument to equate Apostolic Tradition with “tradition of men.”

But all this talk of equality does makes me realize something.
 Women have something I will never have (besides certain body
parts) – being called a Mother. And I am not talking about being called
a Mother with a certain expletive following it.  I am
restricted to being called a Father.  Everybody knows Fathers
Day is a second rate holiday compared to Mothers Day.  You can
imagine my hurt over the years when my children were in school and they
would have them make Mothers Day cards to take home.  Fathers
Day was deliberately put in June when school was out so that they would
never have to do this for their fathers.  What an unfair act
of discrimination!  Now I understand the role of mother is
tied with them actually giving birth to a child and so I find yet
another unfair act of discrimination  in that I can’t get
pregnant.  So I am starting the “Mens Pregnancy Conference”
and the organization “Roman Catholic Pregnant-men.”  We will
have ceremonies naming us capable of bearing children where three
midwives will place hands on our tummies and confer pregnancy on us.
 What you think this is silly?  I assure you
ontologically I can become  pregnant to the same level that
women can be ordained priests.  Oh wait.